<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Menace, Memory and Makra Bread by Nina22783</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28642992">Menace, Memory and Makra Bread</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nina22783/pseuds/Nina22783'>Nina22783</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Expanse (TV), The Expanse Series - James S. A. Corey</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, The Expanse (TV) - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 06:08:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>12,918</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28642992</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nina22783/pseuds/Nina22783</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Marco Inaros had no time for Naomi. He had a war to wage and win and a whole Belt to free.<br/>Naomi was his past and she was also his worst mistake.<br/>She was also in his head...<br/>And on his ship.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Marco Inaros / Naomi Nagata</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter One</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This story is a sort of behind the scenes take on Marco's thoughts in Season 5 of The Expanse.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The whole business was utterly infuriating, and he could no longer tell if it was his blood boiling over or his throat closing in on him. He couldn’t remember a time when his son had ever defied a direct order. Filip enjoyed teasing his father, and over the years they had gone through their fair share of squabbles over enforcing bedtimes, food choices and ship assignments but his son knew very well how to navigate the difference between the spaces in which they were father and son, where he was ‘baba’ and Filip was ‘banna’ and the ones in which he was a general and Filip, a soldier. That demarcation had never before needed edifying nor did it require explanation. And yet, it wasn’t that he had refused to ‘space’ his mother, Marco would never have actually enforced that. It was his reaction to the command, visceral and defiant. It became abundantly clear that if it came to it, he would choose her over him. It was as if all of Marco’s fears had come to life in that one moment, only to be made worse by Cyn deciding to step in and field everyone's emotions by playing the ever-fucking-martyr/nanny he was.</p><p>He had known that it would be a disaster the moment Filip told him he was bringing her with him. Even that traitorous part of him that was curious to see her again was wary. The irresistible urge to see her face and to test out who she had become in the past 19 years was not compelling enough to quell the overwhelming dread of what she could do to him.</p><p>What, only she, could do to him.</p><p>The way only her eyes could hold him in place and dismantle all of his guises and undo all of his power. They had never needed words spoken between them to cut at the heart of each other. They had always managed it with just one look. And he had been right. The moment he set eyes on her, it was as if all the hate that he had so carefully nurtured over two decades had fizzled out into that familiar, shameful, desperate need to know what she would say next. Finding himself holding his breath and straining his eyes so we wouldn't miss what she would do next. 
What a fucking nightmare!</p><p> </p><p>He wasn’t altogether surprised that she tried to stab him. Naomi always lashed out when she was trapped. And between the two of them, they had enough anger and passion to fuel, at the very least, a few dozen assassination attempts. But Filip stepping in and trying to mediate their respective hatreds had been both surprising and disappointing. Did the boy really think that after everything that had happened, he could now frame both of his parents equally? The one who left and the one who stayed. The one who chose strangers and the one who chose his own. What was going through his head? Or was he ultimately, also just… curious.</p><p> </p><p>Marco had spent the last few years sporadically being bombarded with images of Naomi at the most inopportune moments. He had begun hearing her name again around the same time people in the belt began speculating about the protomolecule and her name was always spoken in conjunction with that Inner poster-boy Holden. The first time he actually saw her was when he was in the middle of a refugee evacuation on some mining moon near Callisto. He was herding a group of children on to a freighter when her smirking face suddenly splashed on a massive screen, as she sat surrounded by a bunch of dusters and inners, sipping coffee and recounting their adventures aboard the Rocinante. The sight had been so jarring that he almost dropped one of the infants he’d been ferrying before he could safely transfer the child over to her mother. No matter how much he tried over the next few days her visage haunted him and he couldn’t exorcise her damnable laughing, gleaming, gorgeous face until he finally gave in and watched the documentary footage in his bunker. 
Watching her new life with her new people settled something in him. It eclipsed the yawning emptiness that had engulfed him for the past decade and a half. 
The loathing that he had nurtured for so long, solidified into bitter, certain resolve. 

Over the years, in weak moments he had often wondered what it would be like if she came back. If she ever missed them. If she regretted leaving. If somewhere deep down, she was still the woman who believed in their freedom more than she believed in anything else and was willing to do anything to achieve it. He had hated himself for those morose, fanciful musings and he had certainly punished himself for the weakness that had made him hope they were real. But seeing her choose these Inners fundamentally changed something within him. Seeing her delude herself with the fantasy that just because six rejected Earthers, dusters and belters on a ship in the middle of nowhere could get along somehow meant that Earth and Mars would share their power and their wealth with the Belt, had quieted something that had been churning in him for decades. 
There were no more questions. 
Marco had an answer now. 
She wasn’t theirs. And she certainly wasn’t his. Perhaps she never had been. Seeing her struggle to breathe as her heart gave out on Ilus had only made him sneer…she would rather die believing in their dreams of expansion and progress that had been fueled by her own collapsing lungs than fight for the survival of her own. How blind was she not to see that difference?</p><p> </p><p>                                                                                                                   ***********</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> He had just completed three back- to- back shifts and his feet were killing him. The main power still hadn’t come on in their tiny bunker and the neon orange bulb over their bed kept making zapping sounds like it was trapping flies. Naomi was sitting cross-legged on their bed, engulfed in his slightly torn shirt, unwrapping a sickeningly sweet stick of Makra bread and humming under her breath. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Marco tumbled onto bed beside her, awkwardly dunking his head into her lap and waiting for her to rub his forehead without actually having to ask. Her hands in his hair always seemed to soothe the rage he wore in his skin all day, every day being yelled at by fucking Inners, working him to the bone on a Belter station. Their very presence irked him because it exposed how his own people had become so used to being told how much they were allowed to touch out of the ore that they mined on their own fucking station! How lazy, bitter and complacent his people had become having been ruled over for so long, grated at him. Sometimes he thought that the Inners had planned it that way, made sure that they kept them hungry on enough scraps that they would be too tired and scared to steal more and too bitter to be truly grateful. That constant itch of rage that no amount of scratching could soothe away kept them busy enough to not do much else.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> Sometimes, in silent, solemn moments in the early morning before they both had to wake up and head to work their unending series of shifts, they would whisper into each other’s skin of breaking free – how they would break this system apart and rebuild it for themselves. They would kiss promises into each others necks as they made love and held each other to sleep. A dream of a place where what they mined, what they made and what they took belonged to them. To belters. It was more than a dream really, it had been simmering steadily in both of them for years, since they first met when they were still kids, but it was coming to a boil now. They were both frenzied and even their lovemaking seemed to have become rushed and crazed as if their bodies knew before they did that they wouldn’t have enough time for love soon… </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>He finally felt her fingers absently stroke the hair at his temple and he breathed in deeply. Suddenly, he felt something beside her hands, something flaky and crumbly, land on his forehead. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Oh come on, are you fucking kidding me?! I hate it when you eat this shit in bed. There are crumbs everywhere,” he scowled up at her. </em>
  <em>She calmly raised an eyebrow, looking down at him and proceeded to lick the sticky flakes off her fingers. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“</em>
  <em>Want some?” she smirked. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>She knew damn well he would never touch that shit and he knew that she knew her asking was just to tease him over his overreaction. He absolutely loathed crumbs in his bed. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You know that will kill you someday? It’s basically sugar baked into some lard. I never understand how you stay so tiny given that you put more crap in your body than Cyn!” he muttered, as he turned his face into her belly trying to avoid any more morsels raining down on him. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You just don’t know how to enjoy what’s good in life,” she returned with a smile as she playfully yanked on his hair. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Oh believe me, I do,” he retaliated by placing a kiss on her navel, his mouth traveling to nip softly at her bellybutton. He thoroughly reveled in her outraged yelp of surprise.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Maybe you need to broaden your horizons,” she said rolling them on the bed and pulling herself down to grind onto him. She nipped his ear in payback and began leaving a steady stream of tiny, soft, impossibly sweet kisses up the side of his face. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Marco forced himself to take a deep breath to steady his racing pulse before he grabbed a hold of both her hands. He looked straight into her eyes before answering with the full weight of his voice this time, “So let’s do that. Broaden our horizon. Both of us. Let’s take that code you’re writing and actually put it to some damn use saving our own people. Teach these Inners that we’re not just their fuckin’ bus boys… ‘Yes Master, No Master. I’m so fucking sick of begging them for the very air I breathe!” </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Naomi stilled all of a sudden and as she moved off him, he suddenly wondered if he had pushed her too far. He knew that they had both had very different lives, even if they were both Belters. Marco grew up in the destitute outer belt, starving and a refugee at five, while she rose up in the ranks on Ceres and eventually went to university. He was much quicker to vengeance than she was. But then he felt her grab a hold of his arm and wrapped it around herself placing a quick kiss to his heart, followed by her head on his chest. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Tell me.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Well, two things. We’re going to free the Belt. And we’re going to do it together,” he whispered a kiss into her hair.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Oh is that all?” she grinned, looking up at him. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Mhmmm. Yea, that will do for now,” he never could resist unmooring her with his conviction. Always pitting his answers against her questions. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“So Inyalowda jus’ goin nya say, here’s your share of everytin’. We don’ need i’ now. Peace be wit you?” Naomi drawled in exaggerated creole. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I never said anything about peace. No one who has power ever gives it up. We take it backna, wa’ dey stole from us, ke” he responded in kind, pressing a kiss to her forehead. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“With what ships? With what army, Marco?” she muttered, frustrated.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> “We steal the ships. As for the army, there is no shortage of angry Belters who wanya take down Inyalowda” he said. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Marco had said this calmly, with a certainty that on the one hand, appeared absurd to her given they were broke and alone but on the other was so patently who he was. She couldn’t help but believe every word he said because of the look in his eyes. If there was anyone who could free the Belt, truly free it… it was this man in her arms. This man who belonged to her, who she loved with everything in her. Who could do anything. She’d always known that about him. People would follow him anywhere. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>After all, she had. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“And how long will it take to gather this army?” she asked solemnly. </em>
  <em>And there was that infernal smirk. The one that always made her knees tremble, her chest tighten, her heart race, her rage roar and more often than not ended with one of them scratching the other’s eyes out or tackling the other into a dark closet.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Well, if you’re so worried we could get a head start right now. It might take a few years to have enough recruits and very hard work …on my part, but I’m quite sure you and I are up to the task of starting our own army,” he challenged as he abruptly turned them over and began to trail a steady stream of wet kisses from her navel down to the burning apex between her legs, burying his face between her thighs, licking his way into her core and promptly killing all her questions for the near future. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>….. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>It was still a few hours before they had to start their first shifts, but Naomi couldn’t go back to sleep. She lay on her side staring down at this man clinging to her like she was the last air-tank on some desolate, dying moon. Marco always slept like that, curled around her with his face buried in her chest, holding her so close it felt like they were the same person. Like he was trying to burrow his way into her skin to live there forever. Like if he didn't hold her so tight, she might leave. She knew then that she would follow this man anywhere. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Before she realized what she was doing, her hands in his hair pulled and she was shaking him awake. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Marco cursed and sputtered obscenities before finally scowling up and into her face. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>She also found herself thinking that she might just want that army he had talked about after all. A brood of children, all with his face scowling up at her in the early morning because she woke them up to try and prevent them from clawing their way deeper into her skin. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I was thinking something,” Naomi whispered.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> “And you couldn’t think 'this something' three hours from now?” Marco drawled obnoxiously and she tutted him to be quiet. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“No actually. I was thinking you’re right,” she said. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Of course, I’m right... What about, though?” he smirked, idly stroking his cheek against her breast as he buried his nose into her neck, drowsily breathing her in.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Let’s do it. Let’s free the Belt…Together,” she answered by taking his face in both her hands and looking deep into his eyes. Marco's eyes suddenly filled with razor-sharp focus, as he suddenly glanced up at her. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>There was something about the way he smiled at her then. It was as if something raging deep inside him had cooled. As if something lonely, longing and desperate had settled. And she couldn’t help feeling grounded and grateful in the knowledge that the something was her. That she had done this, stilled him. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>She had never felt so powerful. He was the most powerful force she had ever encountered. And she suddenly realized that she had power over him. Something about that was simultaneously intoxicating and unmooring. Naomi felt both anchored by his steady gaze and free to cast them both off into any unknown place of her choosing. She was certain he would follow.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>So she brought his face close and kissed him deeply before whispering against his lips “But I think we should work on securing that army before we do anything else. I have a few ideas on how you can help me with that.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Marco frowned as he opened his eyes glaring at the reflector screen in front of his bed. He had fallen asleep at a terrible angle and his neck was stiff as a board. He noticed the screen in front of him still showed the Rocinante steadily on track to overtake the Zmeya in a few days. He needed to come up with something soon. He needed to focus. He also needed one damned day where he managed more than three hours of sleep without drowning in memories until he found himself waking up in a cold sweat, gasping for air and painfully hard. He shook himself awake and violently rubbed at his dead-shot eyes as he dragged his overalls on and slipped on his boots. Step by step, he shed the skin he had worn in his sleep, the one that still prickled with the memory of an ancient promise sealed with a kiss.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter Two</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was still early. In some ways he found these quiet moments comforting, where most of the crew was asleep, except for those with shifts in the hull and main drive zones. He could walk the corridors of the Pella uninterrupted by the barrage of constant questions, requests or concerns that usually followed in his wake. It was time he always took to work through the growing archive of problems plaguing his mind - battle strategy, food supplies, negotiation tactics with various OPA factions in the future, until he felt he had something workable in place to guide him through the rest of the day. </p><p>Sadly, none of that seemed to be working for him this morning and he kept losing focus on his plans to get the Zmeya safely docked with one of the Free Navy ships before the Rocinante could catch up to it. Instead, his mind kept wandering back to the dimly lit isolation cell at the end of the hallway. He had religiously avoided going anywhere near it since her little stabbing attempt and since she’d put him in this bloody mess by alerting her people to his plans…</p><p>‘Her people’… </p><p>That thought still stung at some deep-rooted level. Practically speaking, he knew it to be true of course, he had witnessed her choose them over and over again and now he had even seen her attack Cyn to protect them. Cyn, who would always love her more than he did Marco but who would also always choose his own. In some ways he felt bad for Cyn, he recognized the sentiment, even if he had the will to overcome the foolish impulse. </p><p>He would have to make things right with Cyn - his rage had gotten the better of him as he lashed out at his former mentor but Cyn was the reason he was here, alive and somewhat functional. Cyn was the one who had picked him up, literally - off the floor lying in a pool of his own vomit - after she walked out on him all those years ago and it was Cyn who had slapped some sense into him… again, literally, before throwing him in a shower. Cyn, who had shown him that he still had family and that he was a father and needed to get over her as well as himself. Over the decades, he worked tirelessly to heal the vacuum she left in him, by filling it with his son instead.<br/>
Fuck, he needed to talk to them both before all this got a whole lot worse. </p><p>But first things first. He needed to get this over with because there was no way that woman could be allowed to spend another second in his head.<br/>
It was bad enough that she was on his damned ship. </p><p>Marco composed himself by taking several deep breaths, straightening his back and striding purposefully towards the end of the hall. Just before turning the corner to open the cell door, he worked to relax his posture into his patented jaunt, smirk firmly locked in place. She was sitting on the bench with her head leaned back against the wall and her arms resting on her crossed knees. It barely took the door fully swooshing open before her eyes were fixed on him and even from a distance he could practically feel her skin buzz defensively.</p><p>She had always woken like that, like a cat… instantly alert at the tiniest shift in atmosphere. He, on the other hand, missed being able to sleep straight on through the deafening clang of the hard-rig mining drill crashing against the wall behind his head on Pallas Station when he was younger. He mostly managed it by burrowing into her arms and her mere scent enveloping him had always drowned out everything else so he could sleep without a care in the world. It had been over a decade since he’d been able to sleep like that without his mind being over-run with worries – flight plans, air and water supply for the refugee ships, Filip’s night terrors.<br/>
Like he said before, things change – some for the better and some for the worse. </p><p>He sauntered to the other end of the bench, sat himself down with a flourish, one knee raised, arm swung around it and casually turned his face to look at her. He hadn’t really looked at her properly since she came on to the ship, at least not when he wasn’t surrounded by the false security provided by the humming presence of at least a dozen other crew members. She had changed in places, there was resting tension at the edges of her jaw that spoke beyond this present moment and there was a tiny scar sitting beneath the left side of her bottom lip taunting him because he had no idea how she got it... or whom she got it from.<br/>
Best not to linger too deeply on that if he wanted to keep his cool.<br/>
Her hair was the most obvious difference, cut-close now that she probably had no one to help her tame it. She never did learn how to braid her own hair and Marco had always done it for her. She had also lost considerable weight and her bones stuck out quite a bit now. The fact had irked him when he saw footage of her on Ilus. After all, living with Inners and being a celebrity meant she no longer scraped by and had the best food now, coupled with fancy things and pretty rooms. Also, she had always had a ridiculous appetite for eating the worst kind of junk the Belt had to offer. Somehow it didn’t really show and he couldn't decide if he was more upset at her for neglecting herself or himself for noticing. Definitely, the latter. 
Still, all things considered, she looked pretty much the same. She was still the most infuriatingly, beautiful woman he had ever seen. </p><p>Naomi, predictably, hadn’t moved a muscle through his brief inventory. She sat perfectly still, staring straight ahead with her head lowered.<br/>
He wasn’t surprised. He had always been the one who had to start things. </p><p>“You’ll be happy to know your little revolt worked. Your boyfriend is alive,” Marco drawled acidly. He could see her fingers tighten slightly around her knees but nothing else came in the way of a reaction, so he decided to press further. </p><p>“I met one of your friends yesterday. Fun times…” he paused for effect, waiting for her to turn and look at him before he kept going. After a beat, she took a deep breath and turned her head, raising an eyebrow at him to continue. </p><p>Fine, if that was how she wanted to play it. He’d just say his bit and get out of here. For all the fun he might be having at her expense in this moment, looking at her this long still prickled at his skin. In some ways, having her sitting so close to him only amplified the distance between them now. Frankly, none of this was good for his composure or for his focus. </p><p>“Camina Drummer,” he stated flatly. </p><p>Naomi tried to hide her surprise, but she was sure some of it reflected on her face. That was the problem with any conversation had with Marco, he would be looking for every tell and he would use it against her sooner or later. </p><p>“Drummer, really? Did she and her crew just stop by to say hello?” she mocked, overly polite. </p><p>Marco smirked. God, how she still loathed that smirk and how she longed to wipe it off his smug face. </p><p>“Actually, she came to join our cause. Her people are now part of the Free Navy. We even exchanged crew. Made it official,” he smiled. </p><p>Naomi had to admit this was surprising news. If Camina had joined Marco, after what he did to Klaes Ashford, that meant that enough of the Belt was joining his cause to force her hand. Drummer generally shot her way out of any corner she was backed into, if she hadn’t this time, then that meant she had no other choice. </p><p> “Is that so?” Naomi answered blankly, taking a steadying breath. </p><p>Marco’s smirk faded quietly. “I said she joined our cause. Not that she wanted to… I can live with that.” </p><p>“You can live with anything,” she whispered, something unnamable pinching at her chest. She looked directly up  at him then. His face, still and solemn, staring back at her. There was no smirk now and he waited a beat before answering every single lurking question she had compounded into that one proclamation. His eyes, as ever, were focused entirely on her, enough to drown her if she let them and so she quickly averted her gaze.  </p><p>“That’s true…” Marco whispered, staring back at her with an intensity that clawed at her insides. She had no intention of talking about … them. Not now, not ever. She would rather kill herself with that infernal kitchen knife. The air in the room suddenly seemed to be heavier with the weight of nearly 20 years of unsaid things, and some mangled, twisted kind of truth lingered and settled between them. There was no one else here, so neither of them really needed to pretend just right now. Not even in self-defense, which seemed to be the only thing driving either of them now.</p><p>And just as suddenly Marco shifted on the bench and looked straight at the door. He cracked one of his knuckles loudly and asked, “Why did you do it?” </p><p>Naomi looked up startled. Surely, he couldn’t actually want to know why- 
He couldn’t really be asking what she- </p><p>“The protomolecule…” he affixed.</p><p>“What are you talking about?” she was genuinely confused now. </p><p>“Why did you give it to Fred Johnson and not your Inner?” he asked dismissively, even though he couldn’t help some latent curiosity from creeping into his voice. </p><p>That was the second time he had snuck Jim into the conversation, and she was well aware it couldn't be due to something as petty as jealousy, not after all this time. He was doing it to read her responses. It was …effective. She didn’t know how to field away the subject, whether she should smirk and dismiss it as him crowing or use it to her advantage or acknowledge it. It was putting her off balance and she was sure that was exactly what he wanted.<br/>
So she decided to ignore the rumble of emotions and just answer the question. </p><p>“The truth is, I don’t know,” she answered with a whimsical smile, looking at her hands. </p><p>Marco raised his eyebrow at her disbelievingly. </p><p>“The crew thought it was gone and I could have let that be the case. I really don’t know… I guess, after all is said and done, I’m more of a Belter than you think I am,” she whispered quietly.</p><p>“I never said you weren’t a Belter. You’re just one who hates herself for it so much it makes you hate your own people even more...then you try to make up for all that with guilt but you can't even manage enough of that ,” Marco interjected viciously. </p><p>He saw her flinch at that and her eyes well up as she tried desperately to hold herself still. She did a decent job of quelling the quiver in her lip but the hit had landed full-force in its truth, exactly the way he wanted it to. And yet he didn’t feel any of the satisfied thrill he thought he would at wounding her. He used to love that she was the only person who stood up to him - that there was so much fight in her, even if it was against him. Seeing her take a hit silently, shrinking in on herself...small, gave him none of the satisfaction he thought it would. If anything, he was even angrier at her for not lashing out at him in turn. This whole thing had been one giant fucking mistake. It had been less than ten minutes and he already felt like he had gone ten rounds in a ring with Karal. </p><p>Marco abruptly stood up and dumped a small hand-sized brick of sticky bread on to the bench between them before moving towards the door. </p><p>He saw her focus on the Makran bread for a moment, frozen in shock. Then she looked up at him in bewilderment like he had grown two heads in the last 6 seconds. Her face hadn’t been this animated in any of their conversations or confrontations so far. </p><p>“What?! It’s Makran bread! You like Makran bread! So fuckin’ take it!” his barked at her angrily. </p><p>Her face remained stunned.</p><p>“Oh for fuck’s sake!,” Marco exclaimed and tore off a tiny piece of the sickeningly sweet, cursed bread and roughly rammed it down his throat.<br/>
“It’s not fucking poisoned! I would never be that derivative!” and then he proceeded to march out of this damned cell before he heard her stand up behind him. </p><p>“Why haven’t you spaced me?!” she exploded, incensed.</p><p>Marco felt like his blood had boiled over to the point where he could break her neck with his bare hands. He clenched his fists and straightened his shoulders preparing himself to turn around and confront her calmly…or somewhat calmly, if his jaw didn’t sink through his own neck by then. </p><p>“Excuse me?” he drawled.</p><p> He saw her nostrils flare and that achingly familiar rage flood her face in a violent flush. He had lost count of the times she had looked at him exactly like that in the past… like she would tear him limb from limb in a fight. It was how they met that first time when they were barely 16, as she cut ahead of him in line for the last noon shift and he yanked her shoulder to tell her off before he was promptly punched in the nose. He remembered her raging and swearing at him for grabbing her, as he just stood frozen in place like a love-struck idiot, hoping desperately that she wouldn't stop screaming at him before he could catch her name. He remembered hearing Cyn and Karal laughing their asses off in a distance. That was when Cyn decided to call her 'knuckles'. In the years that followed, Marco usually egged her on during a spat just so that he could see her face flush and her eyes flash the same way because she was never more beautiful and he never loved her more than when she was raging at him about something. Eventually they would advance on each other and at some point, the incensed pushing would turn to desperate pulling. The spitting insults would switch seamlessly into declarations of want and it was as if there weren't enough hands between them to get at all the skin they desperately needed to touch, their mouths furiously biting at each other as they forgot their own names. 
Now he battled against every one of those impulses, as he curled his fists tightly enough to stop the blood flow and subsequently quell that particular flood of memories. </p><p>“You know you should! I know that you know you should! So why haven’t you yet?” she asked somewhat calmer. </p><p>Marco waited a long while for the words to form. His rage at her assumption was flooding him quicker than his mind was able to counter it. Yes, he had posed and asked Filip to space her. It was a test for Filip. But for her to say it… to demand it, so calmly. To ask him to kill her the same way she had tried to kill him. It was a confirmation of everything he knew but still had somehow managed to not truly let himself believe. That, even then, she had never loved him the way he had loved her. That she had convinced herself that he was just some brainless monster hurling rocks at a planet without purpose or vision or just cause to do so. </p><p>She had assimilated and borrowed not just the ideas but even the language of their oppressors. When they killed millions of Belters over generations, they had deemed it ‘progress’, expansion, a necessary evil. The killing was slow and methodical, conducted over centuries of depriving them of air and making them thirst for water, all so the inners could convince themselves that they were not, in fact, committing genocide. But when those they killed got angry, sought revenge and to take what was theirs or fight back, they were ‘savages’ and ‘barbarians’ and ‘terrorists’.<br/>
So that is who he was to her now.<br/>
Fine.<br/>
He could use that. </p><p>“You seem to want me to,” Marco answered voice turned to ice, as he skulked forward and stood barely a hair’s breadth away from her. Pressing his face as close to hers as he could without actually touching her. </p><p>“The thing is Naomi, I’m in no mood to give you what you want,” he spat out before turning around and stalking out of the room. </p><p>The door locked itself behind him and Naomi found herself frozen in place. She still didn’t really know what had just happened. She didn’t know who won this round but she had a feeling it definitely wasn’t her. All she knew was that it felt like she was on Ilus again and that every single breath she drew was agony and just keeping herself conscious was a quest for survival. It took a while before she noticed the moisture in her eyes and she blinked away the tears that were streaming down her face in rivulets. </p><p> </p><p>Cyn, switched off the feed to the cell and sighed.<br/>
Well, that was a fucking disaster!<br/>
But not really in the way he had thought it would be.<br/>
Then again, in some ways it was exactly the way he thought it would be.<br/>
He always knew those two would be the death of him.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter Three</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Marco stormed into the canteen in dire need of a drink.<br/>
Rage and regret coursed in equal parts through his veins, battling for regency. That hadn’t gone according to plan at all, even if he had somehow managed to get in the last word by a narrow margin. If he had to put a finger on it, it was mostly about the way she looked at him now, like he wasn’t there…or he was but he was someone she had never known and clearly had no wish to. He had to admit that it rattled him. Her eyes cut at him, even if she couldn’t think of cutting words to accompany her gaze. She looked at him as if she feared him, as if she knew he would hurt her because that was all he was capable of and he didn't know how to process that look from the same eyes that once owned him. It was true he was now setting out to hurt her for the way that she had hurt him but the lingering fear in her eyes weighed him down like nothing else could. She mostly stayed silent around him. Words had always been his strength and she was smart enough to know not to use too many with him. She didn’t really need to. Seeing her look at him like that, like all he was had been reduced to a stranger that scared her, was enough.<br/>
He could admit to himself that it stung...deeply.<br/>
The truth is, she now looked at him with the eyes of an Inner.<br/>
And while he enjoyed inspiring that look in their eyes, he hated seeing it in hers. </p><p> </p><p>He desperately needed that drink this instant to stop his hands from shaking.<br/>
Perhaps he’d look for Cyn’s secret stash of Tia Margoli’s brandy, the bastard kept changing the places he hid it. As Marco turned the corner and walked into the room, he spotted Cyn sitting on the bench munching on some deadly, sugar laden concoction of his own creation that was so sickeningly sweet he could practically smell it from here. Cyn gave him a cursory look and the latter continued focusing on his meal. </p><p>Well, no time like the present. </p><p>Marco filled himself a pint of vodka and took a seat right next to Cyn, even though the rest of the canteen was completely empty this early in the day. For a moment they didn’t say anything and just as Marco was about to begin framing some kind of an apology without actually having to say the words, he was interrupted by Cyn surreptitiously pushing a large tumbler in front of him. </p><p>Marco looked down at the glass before him.<br/>
It was Jaffsa.<br/>
Worse, it was Cyn’s morning batch of Jaffsa - more sugar than milk and spice and so thick he felt like heaving just by looking at it. There were few things he found more disgusting than Jaffsa, especially the way Cyn made it. He didn’t have it in him to look up at Cyn’s face to witness his mentor's perverse satisfaction, so he just nodded and smiled in thanks. He took a calming breath, lifted the glass to his lips and took a sip. He couldn’t help choking a little bit as he tried to convince his throat to swallow the poison rather than chuck it up as all his instincts were screaming at him to do.<br/>
He put the glass down and turned to glance at Cyn. The bastard wasn’t exactly smiling but it was a close thing. He just raised his eyebrows at Marco and he had a feeling one sip wouldn’t be enough to appease him.</p><p>*Sigh* 
Fine! So, Cyn just wanted to witness him choke on his pride... literally. The man was so fucking predictable sometimes. Still, it beat having to have an actual conversation about it all. He’d had his fill of those for today. So, Marco lifted the tumbler again, nodding a tilt 'yam seng' and gulped the contents as quickly as he could. He could feel his insides twist in familiar agony, looking to throw up everything but he worked to choke the entire contents down because he was damned if he was going to give Cyn that much satisfaction this early in the day. When he was done, he followed up the Jaffsa by downing the Vodka in one gulp so that he could somewhat combat and numb the vile aftertaste.<br/>
He felt rather than saw Cyn rise up from the table, dump his dirty dishes into the washer a few feet away and come to a stop directly behind him .<br/>
Suddenly, Marco felt the weight of his large, meaty hand at the top of his head ruffling his curls the way he reserved only for Filip, something he used to do when Marco was several decades younger. Something he definitely hadn’t done since.<br/>
What the fuck?! </p><p>“Talk to Filip,” Cyn said, before walking out. </p><p> </p><p>                                                                                                          ******</p><p> </p><p>Marco walked towards Filip’s room still ruminating over Cyn’s little ... whatever that was. While they were both obviously close, they were also openly batting heads at every possible turn. Cyn believed in the same things he did but was somehow able to do so without any of the bitterness and bile that always seemed to accompany Marco's convictions. The last time Cyn had touched him had been a few days after Naomi left, when Cyn found him lying on the floor in a drunken mess practically choking on his own vomit. Cyn had held him close as he collapsed into a fit of tears, rage, rambling and god knows what else before passing out completely.<br/>
They obviously never talked about it.<br/>
Marco had woken up the next morning to find a stabilizer and a glass of electrolytes by his bed and that was that. </p><p> </p><p>Filip had stayed asleep throughout the entire episode. Luckily, even as a baby, the boy could sleep through a war. A talent that proved particularly useful over the years while Marco actually was waging his war. He moved around seamlessly at the helm of one ship or the other with Filip, as a toddler, strapped to his chest or while leading refugee evacuations all over the system with his three-year-old son strapped to his back, usually asleep and drooling into the curls at the base of Marco’s neck. </p><p> </p><p>Speaking of.<br/>
Marco looked down at his too-tall son lying on his bunk, legs askew, arms flung over his head, mouth wide open and drooling. He had kicked his blanket to the floor and in a gesture almost as natural to them both as breathing, Marco bent to pick it up and drape it over his legs. He had forgotten a time when this wasn’t how his son slept, with complete abandon and where he wasn’t the one picking up his discarded things off the floor. Soon after Naomi left, Marco would spend hours staring at the baby  sleep. He wondered if the boy already sensed that one half of his family abandoned him or if he blamed his father for it. In the days after she left, Marco became possessed by a gripping terror that Filip would die. That he would leave too. He began obsessing over ridiculous medical statistics about the nth percentage of babies who rolled over in their sleep and choked during the night. For nearly two weeks Marco could barely sleep a wink, the moment his head would loll onto his shoulder, he'd jerk himself awake and rush to his son's crib to make sure the child was still breathing. Nearly thirteen days in, he just fell flat on the floor during his shift on the line and cracked his head open. While he was in the med bay, Karal brought Filip in and put him on his chest and both father and son finally slept through the entire night. From that day on, till Filip was four years old, that was the only way the boy slept...on his baba's chest. Marco told himself it was mostly for Filip's benefit but he knew it was mostly the other way around. To this day, when Filip was genuinely sad or upset or angry, he'd seek Marco out and without saying a word would plunk his head on his baba's chest and just lay still. Marco now found himself maneuvering himself beside his sprawled out son on the bed and placed the boy's sleeping head onto his chest. 
 There was something quiet and grounding about the familiarity of the ritual and he desperately needed to bask in something familiar right now. </p><p>As Marco silently stroked Filip's hair while the boy slept soundly, he absently wondered how Filip was coping after having spaced his lover back on the Hisami. They had never really talked about Filip falling in love, but Marco remembered being terrified when he had seen his son wrapped around the other boy. Scared that Filip was inevitably bound to lose himself and consequently, his focus, by falling madly in love just like his father had done. As it turned out, Filip’s focus had only sharpened somehow. The other boy, Andrew, had shared in the same vision and struggle as his son. Marco wished there was some way he knew of letting the boy know that he was proud of him, of how he had rallied and pushed through his pain when he most needed to. 
But he was well aware of his limitations when it came to putting such feelings into words. </p><p>Honest conversations between father and son became more challenging the day he noticed that his son had gotten taller than him. Filip was 15 and had shot up like a beanstalk in the past year until he practically towered over his father and while Marco was secretly proud and delighted by the fact, he also marked that as the moment when his son was no longer a child and needed to learn how to lead. It had meant solidifying some distance between them. It had meant Marco turning colder for the last person who also knew he could be warm when he wanted to. </p><p>He'd already had plenty of practice at letting go in phases over the years. </p><p>There had been an entire year when Filip had been six that he was plagued by night terrors. 
Marco would put the boy to sleep and inevitably an hour or so later while he was at the bridge of a ship or in a meeting with the crew or in his bed, the boy would silently stomp into whatever room he was in - spot his Baba, crawl up his legs, settle on top of his chest and latch on to fall asleep. Marco had become so used to it that when the day finally came where Filip slept through the night, he found himself anxiously casting glances at the command room door every few minutes waiting for his son to interrupt him. The fact that he didn't was unsettling and had made him realize that he missed it. It was Marco who couldn't sleep that night. He found himself tossing and turning without his son'd weight on his chest to settle him in place. He eventually sought Filip out, crawling into his bunk in the middle of the night, lifting him up and folding him onto himself. </p><p>When the boy was twelve, he got too heavy to carry on his shoulders and Marco remembered Filip being upset at not being able to look out over the crowd gathered to hear Anderson Dawes speak at Pallas Station. So Marco had lifted him onto his shoulders out of sheer habit but after a few minutes he had to set him down because Filip was too big now and he felt his neck go stiff from the weight of the boy leaning against it. And another layer of distance settled between them. </p><p>When Marco first caught his son hiding in the brig, kissing Andrew, he had been thirteen. Filip barely had it in him to look up at his father and Marco remembered thoroughly relishing his son’s embarrassment while simultaneously feeling anxious over this new phase in the boy’s life where his love would be divided among strangers and family.
 They didn’t say a word for a long time before Marco just said, “You are being safe, yes?”</p><p>“Of course! Nothing's happened! Please, I don’t want to talk about this!” Filip had moaned, hiding his face in his hands. </p><p>“Why not? He’s beautiful, that boy. I should probably discuss this with him too…” Marco smirked. </p><p>“Baba, don’t you dare! Just stop. Please!” Filip shouted.
 It had been reassuring to know he could partake in that particular rite of passage - mortifying his son over sex. </p><p>Marco smiled absently at the rush of memories as he looked at Filip's face lax in sleep. And then promptly reminded himself that Filip had grown up well aware of how much weight to give the past and how much focus he needed to keep in store for what was coming. That balance was being tested now. </p><p> </p><p>Their struggle left little place for sentiment. Feelings were a weakness and their cause couldn’t afford for either of them to be weak, especially not now. </p><p> </p><p>In so many ways, that was why Naomi needed to be dealt with and swiftly.<br/>
She was trying to fill his son’s head with her weak kumbaya bullshit. Somehow, she had convinced herself that it was possible to sit on the fence when her people were dying and work to appease those that were killing them. That it was possible to fight for Belters by sticking to the very systems and rules designed by their oppressors to keep them low. </p><p>This was why he had always loathed Fred Johnson. </p><p>Kales Ashford had been a patriot, even if they didn’t agree on those definitions towards the end. Killing him was purely a byproduct of Ashford having made it his mission to come after Marco. When it came down to it, one of them had to die and Marco made sure it wasn’t him. But Johnson had both believed and actively fed other Belters his lies of appeasement. That Belters were duty-bound to be ‘non-violent’ in the face of their oppression so that the Inners would ‘look favorably’ on their cause. He didn’t give a fuck about whether the Inners looked favorably upon them, what sort of person expected you to negotiate with someone who had a gun to your head? The sort of person who had benefited from gun-trade, was built up by the arms dealers and was part of their distribution pipeline in the past but now wanted to pat himself on the back for having some sympathy for those that were getting shot. There was nothing he hated more than that kind of self-congratulatory hypocrisy – the idea that their struggle and their dissent needed to be voiced in terms and conditions laid down by the very people they were protesting against!</p><p> Marco never forgot the day the UN bitch Avasarala visited the outer Belt planet of Mikkon nine years ago. The outer belt had some of the poorest people, even for Belters. Most Mikkonians hadn’t had more than a meal a day for over 30 years and they were well accustomed to living with air and water shortages well below 30%. Their bodies were twisted and most had obvious deformities - missing fingers, scales or scarred flesh. But the Earther ‘peace envoy’ had wrapped herself in lavish silks and proudly sported a collar of diamonds the size of walnuts as she addressed the crowds. He later heard her speak to the press on one of the Inner news feeds about the occasion, her diplomatic vision for the future and her fashion choices. “They are so poor there. I figure they've never seen what the diamonds they mine here look like once they've been processed. I think seeing them will cheer them up,” she had said.<br/>
Marco had wanted to set fire to her and her whole lot right then.</p><p> </p><p>‘There are other ways of freeing Belters than with warships’ Naomi had mouthed at him. </p><p>As if, little than a year ago, Earth and Mars had not asserted their individual strengths on the whole system by waging a war. As if they had not colonized the outer planets with warships and dominated the Belt by starving them to do their bidding. As if to their oppressors, ‘strength’ hadn’t always meant killing!

 He had heard what she said to his son yesterday, about her time on the Behemoth.</p><p> ‘It took all of us working together’, as if Earthers and Martians would ever work ‘together’ with the Belt to share the wealth of the New Worlds.  </p><p>She was blind enough to believe that just because six people had managed to collaborate to open the gates, this meant two worlds that had only gleaned power through war and fear would suddenly find themselves in a giving mood. That they would be generous benefactors rather than the tyrants they had been for centuries. Ilus had been the perfect example, the fight to assert dominance began even before all three species had managed to set foot on the planet’s soil. </p><p> </p><p>But Marco also knew his son, he was young, naive and curious about his mother and there was no denying that despite his hero worship for Marco, he was utterly incapable of coddling him the way she was. Perhaps, it was time to give him a clearer role in their struggle and convince him to turn his mother away. Perhaps he could use Naomi’s junker to lure the Rocinante and kill several birds with one …ship. 
He was ruminating over the details when he felt Filip shift on the bed. </p><p>“Baba? What’s wrong? Is everything okay?” Filip asked looking up at Marco, eyes still foggy with sleep. </p><p>“Yes, everything’s fine. I just came to wake you banna, we have quite a bit of a day ahead of us,” Marco worked to keep his tone light and his smile bright. He was aware that yesterday had been an unmitigated disaster and he needed to smooth things over before he ended up actively assisting Naomi in her quest to manipulate his son. </p><p>Filip got up slowly and sat up, blinking his eyes open, cracking his knuckles and working the kinks out of his neck. 
Sometimes, Marco still marveled at how much the boy looked like her. Her nose and skin and hair but his eyes. He used to think he would resentseeing her face on his son every day but since he was a baby the sight of her lingering on him had been its own kind of balm for his wounded pride. It had quelled his rage at her somewhat because she had at least given him something to hold on to for dear life… and he had.<br/>
Besides, the knuckle cracking…that was all him. </p><p>Marco put his hand on his son’s neck stroking the stiffness away and Filip leaned back and curled into his side in a loose hug. Good, that means he wasn’t still lingering over yesterday. He was well aware that he had gotten lucky, given he had pushed both Cyn and his son too close to the brink.<br/>
His rage and his fear at losing Filip to his mother was making him both erratic and careless.<br/>
He needed to get a hold of himself. </p><p>“Can I grab something to eat first?” Filip asked quietly. </p><p>Marco smirked, and handed him a large piece of the cursed, sticky Makran bread he had been lugging around as a peace offering since yesterday. He watched his son’s eyes widen in surprise...  a discomfiting echo of his mother's reaction to the same gesture a couple of hours prior. Marco had always strictly rationed Filip's intake of sweets and he and Cyn had gotten into countless arguments over the subject while the boy was growing up. </p><p>“Makran Bread?! For me? You mean I can have it?” Filip hesitated before taking the damn thing and looking at Marco like he would swat it out of his hands at any minute. </p><p>“Well, I am giving it to you. Unless you want me to reconsider. Which, as you are well aware, I really wouldn’t mind doing,” Marco countered with a smirk. </p><p>“No no. I’ll take it while I have the chance. Where did you manage to get it, Baba?” Filip smiled, barely managing to conceal his excitement. </p><p>“Well, as it so happens, it turns out I am surprisingly well connected now,” Marco drawled in response. </p><p>It was gratifying to witness himself echoed in his son this time, as Filip choked on the bread, snorting loudly to contain his laughter.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter Four</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>It had been weeks since the Augustin Gamarra and Marco still couldn’t understand what had happened to her. 
She had been part of every stage of planning the attack, she knew what her code would ultimately be used for. She had designed it to be undetectable and brutally precise for that very reason. Yet, when the moment of their triumph arrived and when he told her what they had accomplished, she had stood frozen in abject horror as if she hadn’t actually known what they were doing all along. He figured it was shock or perhaps she was genuinely angry that he hadn't shared all the details with her. Marco wondered at that himself too, perhaps he knew deep down that she might not react the way he had hoped and wanted to put off their inevitable argument over it. Whatever he had anticipated it hadn't been this... this silent, overwhelming anguish. She seemed shattered and she looked betrayed and he couldn't comprehend any of that at all. Maybe it was just her nature, she had never really been a soldier or been in battle and for all her radical posturing, life and death were definitive equalizers. An attack such as this one distinguished the Belters who were willing to fight for their freedom and those that just talked about it.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>It would pass, he told himself. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>It took a few weeks of her growing quieter and colder towards him for him to realize that perhaps it wouldn’t. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>She randomly burst into tears in her sleep and he would hold her close all night still trying to comprehend why this was affecting her so much, trying to discern what it was that was eating at her. The ship had been a righteous kill, recompense for hundreds of attacks on Belter moons, where Inyalowda had cut off air without warning and starved and choked thousands of people over the course of a handful of months because profit margins weren’t being met due to the frequent belter strikes and protests. Yet, Naomi cried so much over their dead on that ship that her tears would soak his shirt through, and she would eventually collapse back into a fitful sleep from sheer exhaustion. He knew it had to be something deeper than this, yes, she felt guilt but surely no amount of guilt for killing their enemies could merit this kind of mourning. She sat still for hours, frozen in place without showering or changing for days on end. It was as if she had left her body behind and floated off somewhere, so he did everything he could to ground her and bring her back to him. He bathed her and quietly sat with her cradled in his arms as he initiated the familiar ritual of braiding her hair, something she had never learned to do for herself.  She had also stopped eating, until he would force her to sit so he could feed her himself, sickeningly sweet things that he always hated that she always loved. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>None of it seemed to work though. Her eyes had this haunted presence that always seemed to look around him or through him but no longer at him. It was as if it hurt her to look directly at his face and that knowledge tore into him like nothing else. That was what he missed the most, the fact that she had stopped looking at him since the day it had happened. Trying to get her to look at him again and see him made him desperate. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Through it all, Filip was the only one that seemed to soothe her. Holding him calmed her and she would cling to him desperately until the baby grew restless at being smothered and cried, wanting to move about. Even then Marco would find her, following the child’s every step with starved eyes, as if losing sight of Filip would leave her alone in the dark without an anchor and he resented her for feeling alone when he was there with her at every turn.  </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>One night, he woke to find her at the other end of the bed curled in on herself. She had been moving away from him for weeks, but it never felt more obvious than when she moved out of his arms in her sleep and shifted to the other end of their small bed. Somehow, those few feet were the greatest distance between them. Since they had met, Marco had quickly learned to think of Naomi's arms as his home. No matter where they were - in their tiny bunker, on a float for months or sharing a single bunk on a ship - sleeping with her wrapped around him meant he was where he was supposed to be. Having her move away from him fundamentally unmoored him, like he was cast out into vacuum all alone. Later that same night, he woke again to find that she had left their bed altogether and the panic of not feeling her made him rush out in search for her. He eventually found her sitting in the dark staring out their tiny window with Filip asleep in her lap. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“What are you doing awake, jaanan?” he asked softly, to announce his presence behind her as he reached out to stroke her hair. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>That was when he felt her flinch.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Her flinching at his touch for the first time burned like a brand deep within him and he couldn’t help the angry tears from pouring out of his eyes. Everything he had done had been for her. She was his entire cosmos, and he was suddenly convinced that she was building up the resolve to leave him. That the past few days of silence and distance were about her gathering her strength and focus to walk away from him and their family. She had been biding her time so that she could leave him quietly. Naomi always hated confrontation.</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>He couldn’t let her do it.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He wouldn’t. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Everything would be okay eventually, as long as she stayed. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>They would find their way back to each other, they always did. He would move entire planets and moons to bring her back to him no matter how long it took. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>The only way to keep her was Filip. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>She would stay for Filip. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>And her staying was all that mattered…</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p> </p><p>                                                            ******</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“Relief,” she had said.</p><p>Leaving him and tearing their little world apart had been a relief. She would have endured anything, even losing Filip to get away from him. Knowing it hadn’t been the same as hearing it being spat in his face. She was telling the truth, the calm in her eyes was a testament to that. And the agony of hearing it was enough to physically overwhelm him and this time he let it. He allowed the sour taste of her hatred wash over him and re-ignite his own.</p><p> </p><p>He never should have gone back for that second round with her, thinking he could appeal to her sense of family and glean some of her plans when it came to his son. To her family meant someone else now. In some ways, it was fitting that he was the one cut open this time. It was her turn to wound and she had lashed out at every opening she could find before he could hope to land a single blow.</p><p> </p><p> “Relief” she had said.</p><p>That was what leaving had been for her. Marco hadn’t been able to weather that blow with his usual calm, and his pain had melted onto his face because the weight of that realization was just too heavy, even now, nearly twenty years later. He had broken her when he took their son from her and she had broken them both when she left. It appears that’s what they did – break each other in different ways and in different places. Perhaps leaving really was a relief. He knew for certain, that’s what he would feel this time around when he saw her go. It would ache, knowing her face again and not seeing it but he had survived that before. Besides this face, only ever looked at him with barely concealed venom, perhaps it was better to just let her go.</p><p> </p><p> “He’s all the things you pretend to be,” she had intended to pile on to his pain but instead, a terrifying kind of icy calm congealed into something black and solid within his veins at the mention of Holden. He didn't bother concealing his jealousy, what would be the point? He had never been able to hide how much he loved this woman, more to the point, he had never really wanted to because he had spent his entire life longing to belong to someone and from the moment they met he knew it would always be her. She was the one who didn't care for being loved by him and he had accepted a long time ago that just because he needed to belong to someone didn't mean they returned the sentiment. But to see her give herself to someone else...an Earther, no less. Yes, he could admit that had burned him. It had made him feel ashamed of himself for having given himself so completely, so irrevocably to a ... traitor.  </p><p>She was right to remind him of Holden. In many ways he had needed that.</p><p>Needed, not only to know and see, but to hear from her how she had managed to fall in love again with someone else… anyone else. Something that he had struggled with enough the first time around. In seventeen years he had barely been able to even look at another woman and if he was honest with himself, it never really occurred to him to try. A war and his son had kept him busy. Besides he knew himself - he was only capable of orbiting around one fixed point at any given time – one love, one child, one cause, one path.  </p><p>Now it seemed he would have to add payback to that list.  </p><p>The Chetzemoka could prove useful in luring the Rocinante if she was the prize reeling it in.</p><p>There was no way she got to keep her ‘family’, if he didn’t.</p><p> </p><p>Marco stomped into his room and splashed some water on to his face trying to force himself to breathe and calm his trembling nerves. He sat on his bed and pulled up the visual feeds from the Pella locating Naomi. She was in Filip’s room.</p><p>Of course, she was.</p><p>She didn’t waste any time.</p><p> </p><p>The exchange had been disarming to witness, even if he knew exactly what she was doing.</p><p>“Killing people doesn’t mean you're strong. I didn’t know how strong I was until after I left and realized I was nobody to your father. I was just a piece of him. My life was his. My dreams were his. Everything I thought and did was to please him,” she was speaking the words in a rush and he was severely disappointed in himself to find that he could still be shocked by anything she said. How dare she pretend that all they had was about his control over her, as if he had put some spell over her and taken away her choices when if anything, it had been the other way around. He was still mulling over the alternate history she was weaving for Filip, trying to reconcile it with his own memories of their time together, all while trying to think beyond the arresting image of her cradling their grown son in her arms. He hated that she was clearly getting to him. That she could give him something Marco couldn't and that Filip was letting his longing for her color everything else.</p><p>“…I walked down to the docks and went into an airlock.”</p><p>His clenched fists cut deep into his knees and he choked as his breath was stolen from his lungs.</p><p>She was lying. She would never have killed herself.</p><p>No matter how shattered she was, she was too strong for that.</p><p>But he couldn’t deny the look on her face when she told their son, he knew in his gut that this was the first time she had ever told this story and he suddenly wished he hadn’t pulled up the feed.</p><p>He wished he hadn’t heard it.</p><p> He didn’t want to know this.</p><p>Because in truth, it changed nothing between them.</p><p>All it did was break a little more, what had already broken ages ago.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>                                                            ******</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>He knew after having witnessed what Naomi had said to his son that he would have to do something drastic to remind the boy of everything that was at stake. Filip was no Welwala, the boy was a Belter through and through and no matter what rubbish his mother had spewed, his son was strong when he needed to be.</p><p>Killing, <em>had</em> made him strong.</p><p>The dusters and earthers had killed them for centuries and that was <em>why</em> the belt feared the Inner planets. That fear had given Inyalowda power over them, it was the source of their strength. Throwing those rocks at Earth, had restored some balance for the Belt. Now Inners were the ones who were scared, and it was the Belt that had power…for the first time in their history.</p><p>Killing had always meant strength.</p><p>Marco didn’t make those rules, he only played by them.</p><p> </p><p>He would have to tear this nonsense out of his son completely, chip him to the bone, so that he could exorcise her from his mind and skin the way he had for himself. And then he would build him back up to the strength he knew the boy had in him because this was <em>his</em> son. His boy, only his.</p><p>And she couldn’t take him away.</p><p>Not then and certainly not now.</p><p> She made her choice and so she would have nothing.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Saying those words to Filip had burned him as much as they clearly stung the boy. Telling him that he was ‘nothing’ without Marco. He knew what that meant because he knew Filip would believe it deep down and it had brought him to tears to do it. He couldn't admit the part of him that was jealous of her, that was angry at Filip for needing her despite everything she had done, that part that was taken in by her grand adventures far more glamorous and exciting than the morbid drudgery of refugee rescue missions, supply runs and battle plans.
 But it had needed to be done. 
He could sense, once again, the crackling resolve in this too-tall boy standing by his side.</p><p>All his again.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Marco made sure he fixed her face firmly in his mind this time – raging and screaming that she hated him. It was the last time he would look at her and it hurt deeper than anything he had ever known.</p><p>That was fitting.</p><p> It should hurt that much and more.</p><p> He let the sting of it surround him and made sure he breathed it in and let it settle in his skin so that she could never touch him again. He would never again let himself forget and confuse who she was now with who she had been when they were in love.</p><p>She hated him now and god knows he hated her all the more for it.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>                                                            ******</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Marco could hear Filip’s scream coming from somewhere near the airlock entrance and he rushed out of the bridge to his son’s side, only to see Cyn’s body floating inert in the air lock and to see hers beyond that, floating in space hurtling towards that cursed ship. Naomi’s body passed through another air lock on the Chetzemoka and in that moment there was no thought running through his head save instinct. Something deeply primal had enveloped him on the back of the already heightened emotions coursing through him throughout this hell-sent day and he issued a command to re-dock with the Chetzemoka, since the latter was still on autopilot and completely under the Pella's control.  </p><p> </p><p>For all her posturing, he really couldn’t believe she had done it. That she had jumped this time. He couldn't believe she would go to these lengths to get back to her inners or was it to get away from him... in this moment he couldn't tell which answer was worse. He didn’t know if she had made it alive, but he knew he couldn’t live with that uncertainty. Before he realized what he was doing, he grabbed a med bag, donned a helmet and found himself crossing the narrow aisle connecting the two ships. He crossed the bridge and pressed the airlock to find her inert body twitching and locking on the floor.</p><p> </p><p>Marco instantly bent down and took out several stabilizers and boosters from the med-pack. He punched one shot into her shins, another in her neck and one into her chest and sat back watching as her breathing stabilized bit by bit. Then he took off his helmet and gloves and turned to open the bacta-salve that would ease the burns and swelling to the left side of her face. She looked like she had been bludgeoned by the wrong end of a blaster till the swelling was deep enough to completely envelop her left eye.</p><p> </p><p>Before he could open the salve however, she regained consciousness, sat up and scurried away from him. It took her a few seconds to register where she was and who was with her on the ship. He could see the exact moment the realization hit home and he saw her jaw harden as angry tears of sheer frustration gathered and pooled in her working eye.</p><p> </p><p>Marco crept closer to her on his knees with the salve held up as a peace offering. Given her utter and complete lack of options, all Naomi could do in that moment was make sure she didn’t make any eye contact with him as she pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around herself to keep herself from shaking.</p><p>In a way, he understood.</p><p>She had literally tried everything…even dying, in order to escape and then to see herself fail was catching up to her in waves. He understood why it was devastating and for once, he wasn’t going to gloat. He admitted to himself that her naked leap into space had shocked him. It had also humbled him.</p><p>Seeing her on the floor, shaking and shivering, visibly broken and so so small, was breaking something inside him. Something he had just begun to piece back together a few hours ago after she had split him open with her declarations of hate.</p><p>They really needed to stop doing this.</p><p>They needed to stop breaking each other.</p><p>He had never believed in her spineless philosophy of ‘walking away as the only choice’ one had. There was always the choice to fight for what one believed in and those one loved.</p><p>And he had fought.</p><p>Perhaps, it was time to admit that he had lost.</p><p>And just this once, perhaps it was okay...even necessary, to walk away. 
For both of them.</p><p> </p><p>He took a deep breath and reached out to touch the left side of her face and saw her flinch back as if his touch would burn her worse than the naked sun in vacuum. So he grabbed her chin and forced her to look him in the eye and still her, as he tried again, piling the ointment onto his fingers and softly layering it onto her burnt skin and her swollen eye. She still wouldn’t look at him, but she kept still, if one overlooked the shivering in rage and regret. Marco worked in silence. Next, he took hold of her mangled hand, the bones had frozen up wrong and he needed to reset them. He looked at her again showing her what he intended to do by placing both his hands around hers and waiting for a response. She nodded ever so slightly, eyes closing as Marco pushed the bones into place and heard her let out a low agonized whine.</p><p> </p><p>Then he backed away from her, several feet and just sat on his haunches, elbows resting on his knees, looking at her not looking at him. He could see how tightly she was biting down on her lower jaw, the vein in her neck seemed like it would burst at any second.</p><p>Someone needed to say something or the sheer volume of unsaid things in the thinly ventilated airlock would choke them both.</p><p>As was their custom, he moved first.</p><p> </p><p>“This ship is still under auto-pilot and fully coded to the Pella. Where did you think you were going to go?” he asked softly, unable to take his eyes off her for even a second.</p><p> </p><p>She looked straight at him then and he braced himself as she flayed him fresh open with her tearful eyes and trembling lips.</p><p>“Anywhere else,” she whispered furiously, tears of rage streaming down her rapidly healing cheek.</p><p> </p><p>Marco took a deep breath, closing his eyes and nodded slightly.</p><p>Well, this was it.</p><p>One final break.</p><p>He looked at her for long moment, it could have been minutes or it could have been years.</p><p>Again, he looked at her not looking at him.</p><p>And with one final heaving breath he stood up, donned the gloves and helmet. “Goodbye Naomi,” he said, turning his back to her and walking toward the edge of the airlock before stopping at the doors and throwing over his shoulder, “You killed Cyn, by the way.”</p><p> </p><p>And this time, he walked away.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>